French Literature

By Jean-Pierre de Beaumarchais, Daniel Couty and Alain Rey.
Paris: Larousse, 2001. 2 Volumes.
Use this work to find introductory articles about French-language writers, their works and the movements they spawned (eg. surrealism). Besides a thorough index in the 2nd volume, this set contains novel summaries and charts showing the development of writers' works alongside their lives. one downside to these entries is they contain no bibliographies.

Edited by Philipe Hamon and Denis Robert Vasselin.
Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert, 2000.
Look here for entries containing a range of key information on established French writers (eg. Montaigne and Prevert): biographies, introductory essays, lists of works, selected critical quotations, plot summaries and bibliographies. The entries are organized alphabetically (eg. Camus comes before Rousseau). Some entries include a separate "Audio & Video" bibliography. Since the focus is on great French writers, contemporary authors, as one might expect, get short shrift.

Edited by J. Brosse.
Nouveau édition. Paris: R. Laffont, c1994. 3 Volumes.
Biographies of "creators of culture"— authors, poets, philosophers, historians and men of science — born before 1951. All entries are signed and include a bibliography, a list of works and a discussion of the author's importance to the world of culture.

Edited by Eva Martin Sartori and Dorothy Wynne Zimmerman.
NY: Greenwood, 1991.
This source considers the lives of significant women in the history of French literature. Entries are arranged chronologically and provide a discussion of literary trends as they relate to women/

Edited by Philippe van Tieghem and Pierre Josserand.
Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968. 3 Volumes.
Although dated, this 3-volume set is handy for finding French language entries on both French and international writers. Use these volumes to get brief biographies on historical authors. For contemporary authors try the Dictionnaire des Écrivains de Langue Française.

Paris: Laffont-Bompiani, 1999.
You will find more than 700 entries in this cramped little book. Though hard on the eyes, this dictionary provides summaries for about 350 literary works, along with entries on authors, literary movements and genres. The work will be most useful when you can not find entries elsewhere. While the book's strength is its range, its weakness is its lack of depth.